Preaching in times of the European ‘Refugee Crisis’: Scandinavian perspectives

Toward the end of 2015, 65.3 million people were seeking refuge or were otherwise forcibly displaced globally. This is the largest number since the recordings began around World War II. In Europe more than 1 million people arrived by sea in 2015 – more than four times as many as the previous year.1 The crisis situation stirred public debate as well as church-based initiatives trying to deal with the situation. In order to understand the interaction between public discourse and local preaching a group of homileticians from seven European countries collaborated on an empirical study of how the refugee crisis impacted preaching. In what follows we present the initial results from the Scandinavian countries

Bærekraftig lovsang? : om lovsangen i den kristne ungdomskulturen som et uttrykk for kristen spiritualitet

Nyere karismatiske lovsanger har den senere tid fått et massivt gjennomslag i ungdomsmiljøer over hele spekteret av det norske kirkelandskapet. Denne artikkelen presenterer denne lovsangstradisjonen som et uttrykk for kristen spiritualitet og søker i lys av spiritualitetsforståelsen til den lutherske teologen Bradley Hanson og den anglikanske presten og forfatteren Kenneth Leech å drøfte og vurdere hvorvidt denne lovssangsspiritualiteten kan karakteriseres som bærekraftig. I tillegg til typiske og allment kjente trekk ved lovsangskulturen, fokuseres det særlig på lovsangstekster brukt på tre større ungdomsfestivaler: Skjærgårds Music & Mission KRIKs nyttårsleir Explore og Impuls

Understanding the Paradox of (Im)Perfection: An Actor-Network Approach to Digitally Mediated Preaching

This paper adds to the growing body of literature on digitally mediated preaching by using actor–network theory (ANT) in conjunction with Amanda Lagerkvist’s work on digital media as theoretical lenses to describe and discuss what we term “the paradox of (im)perfection”. This paradox refers to the tension between an ideal of perfection and an ideal of imperfection (or vulnerability) as experienced by church practitioners who were “thrown” online abruptly and unexpectedly due to the pandemic. In our analysis we show how human and non-human actors interact (and act on each other) in ways that assemble their networks towards a mode of visibility and perfection, or towards a mode of authenticity, intimacy, and imperfection. In the former mode, preachers and church practitioners find themselves competing in “a mimetic visibility contest” that is characterized by an ontology of numbers (likes, follower counts, retweets, etc.) and a subsequent ethos of quantification. In the latter mode, an ethos of care affords the opportunity for spiritual intimacy, even among “anonymous” online individuals. Drawing on Deanna A. Thompson’s and Amanda Lagerkvist’s work, we argue that the latter mode enacts “a cruciform media ethics” in which the embodied worshiping community interacting online can be understood as “the virtual body of the suffering Christ”. Here, digital media is enacting as “caring media” rather than “metric media”. While the paper introduces message-oriented, media-oriented, and ontology-oriented approaches as helpful for the study of digitally mediated preaching, it ultimately argues for the superior virtues of ANT as a non-dichotomous approach—overcoming both the message/media and the virtual/real divides which are often inherent to other approaches

Et brutalt virkelighedsmøde

Et studie blandt nyuddannede præster viser, at mødet med menighedslivet i Den norske kirke for nogle enkelte har været ganske krævende. De pågældende tilkendegiver et oplevet mismatch mellem indhold og vægtlægning i uddannelsen og hverdagens opgaver og krav. Ud fra et praktisk teologisk perspektiv og med inddragelse af kundskabs- og praksisteori drøfter artiklen, hvordan denne problemstilling kan forstås. Der argumenteres for, at det ikke primært handler om utilstrækkelige kundskabsressourcer, men i nok så høj grad om en normativ diskrepans mellem de teologiske og liturgiske idealer, som den nye præst bringer med sig fra uddannelsesforløbet, og den stedlige kirkelige virkelighed. Afslutningsvist drøftes det, hvordan uddannelsen kan forholde sig til denne udfordring

Preaching in times of the European ‘Refugee Crisis’: Scandinavian perspectives

Toward the end of 2015, 65.3 million people were seeking refuge or were otherwise forcibly displaced globally. This is the largest number since the recordings began around World War II. In Europe more than 1 million people arrived by sea in 2015 – more than four times as many as the previous year.1 The crisis situation stirred public debate as well as church-based initiatives trying to deal with the situation. In order to understand the interaction between public discourse and local preaching a group of homileticians from seven European countries collaborated on an empirical study of how the refugee crisis impacted preaching. In what follows we present the initial results from the Scandinavian countries